¡Adiós México!

Jonathan:
We've spent the past several days wandering the streets of lovely San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Aside from enjoying some down time--long lazy days without itineraries or agendas--we've managed to chart a rough course through Guatemala, and we are getting ready to bid farewell to Mexico in the morning.

The departure feels bittersweet. We've enjoyed rambling though this country for over two months now, and there's a fondness that has grown with our sense of familiarity here. This country has provided us with a nurturing backdrop for the first leg of our journey together--it feels like we've defined our style of traveling here. Mexico has helped us discover a multitude of new things we've loved, and a significantly lesser number of new things we haven't loved. It has helped us define what we are looking for on our journey, and it's provided us with an impressively diverse landscape to test every last piece of our precious gear. At the same time, ditching a bulky tour book and heading into the land of wild jungles, undiscovered beaches, and ridiculously low prices has its appeal.

Our next destination is Lago Amatlàn, a pristine highland lake in southern Guatemala set in a valley between three smoking volcanoes. We're expecting to spend roughly a week making our way through the various towns around the lake before heading into richly cosmopolitan Antigua where we're entertaining the idea of some more Spanish classes.